Schema to ensure payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus

ABSTRACT

A method for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus. A consumer provides to a channel of an asynchronous channel based bus, a request message that includes a request for data. A producer monitoring the channel receives the request message. The producer generates a response message to the request message. The response message includes a schema and a payload. The producer provides, to the channel of the asynchronous channel based bus, the response message. The consumer receives the response message and performs a runtime validation of the schema of the response message. The consumer allows the response message to be utilized when the response message passes the runtime validation.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 15/635,015 filed on Jun. 27, 2017, entitled “A Bridge and Asynchronous Channel Based Bus to Provide UI-to-UI Asynchronous Communication,” by Dave Shanley, and assigned to the assignee of the present application.

This application is related to co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 15/635,043 filed on Jun. 27, 2017, entitled “An Asynchronous Channel Based Bus And Bridge Architecture Enabling Decoupled Services,” by Dave Shanley, and assigned to the assignee of the present application.

This application is related to co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 15/635,053 filed on Jun. 27, 2017, entitled “A Bridge, an Asynchronous Channel Based Bus, and a Message Broker to Provide Asynchronous Communication,” by Dave Shanley, and assigned to the assignee of the present application.

BACKGROUND

Virtual-machine technology essentially abstracts the hardware resources and interfaces of a computer system on behalf of one or multiple virtual machines, each comprising one or more application programs and an operating system. The recent emergence of cloud computing services can provide abstract interfaces to enormous collections of geographically dispersed data centers, allowing computational service providers to develop and deploy complex Internet-based services that execute on tens or hundreds of physical servers through abstract cloud-computing interfaces.

Within virtual servers as well as physical servers, virtual machines and virtual applications can be moved among multiple virtual or physical processors in order to facilitate load balancing and to co-locate compatible virtual machines and virtual applications with respect to virtual and physical processors. Similarly, virtual machines and virtual applications can be moved among the virtual servers within a virtual data center as well as among physical servers within the underlying physical hardware within which virtual data centers are constructed. Migration of virtual machines and virtual applications within virtual data centers can also be used for load balancing, fault tolerance and high availability, and for many other purposes.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and form a part of the Description of Embodiments, illustrate various embodiments of the subject matter and, together with the Description of Embodiments, serve to explain principles of the subject matter discussed below. Unless specifically noted, the drawings referred to in this Brief Description of Drawings should be understood as not being drawn to scale. Herein, like items are labeled with like item numbers.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example computer system upon which embodiments of the present invention can be implemented.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example cloud-based computing environment upon which embodiments described herein may be implemented.

FIG. 3 illustrates a system having an asynchronous channel based bus to provide asynchronous communication, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates the architecture for a bridge transparently extending a bus to and from the message broker, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates the architecture of a plurality of different applications all communicating via the distributed buses, in accordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram of a method for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus, according to various embodiments.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Reference will now be made in detail to various embodiments of the subject matter, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. While various embodiments are discussed herein, it will be understood that they are not intended to limit to these embodiments. On the contrary, the presented embodiments are intended to cover alternatives, modifications and equivalents, which may be included within the spirit and scope the various embodiments as defined by the appended claims. Furthermore, in this Description of Embodiments, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of embodiments of the present subject matter. However, embodiments may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well known methods, procedures, components, and circuits have not been described in detail as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the described embodiments.

NOTATION AND NOMENCLATURE

Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in terms of procedures, logic blocks, processing and other symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In the present application, a procedure, logic block, process, or the like, is conceived to be one or more self-consistent procedures or instructions leading to a desired result. The procedures are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, although not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated in an electronic device.

It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the description of embodiments, discussions utilizing terms such as “connecting,” “displaying,” “receiving,” “providing,” “determining,” “generating,” “establishing,” “managing,” “extending,” “creating,” “migrating,” “effectuating,” or the like, refer to the actions and processes of an electronic computing device or system such as: a host processor, a processor, a memory, a virtual storage area network (VSAN), a virtualization management server or a virtual machine (VM), among others, of a virtualization infrastructure or a computer system of a distributed computing system, or the like, or a combination thereof. It should be appreciated that the virtualization infrastructure may be on-premises (e.g., local) or off-premises (e.g., remote or cloud-based), or a combination thereof. The electronic device manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic and/or magnetic) quantities within the electronic device's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the electronic device's memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission, processing, or display components.

Embodiments described herein may be discussed in the general context of processor-executable instructions residing on some form of non-transitory processor-readable medium, such as program modules, executed by one or more computers or other devices. Generally, program modules include routines, programs, objects, components, data structures, etc., that perform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types. The functionality of the program modules may be combined or distributed as desired in various embodiments.

In the figures, a single block may be described as performing a function or functions; however, in actual practice, the function or functions performed by that block may be performed in a single component or across multiple components, and/or may be performed using hardware, using software, or using a combination of hardware and software. To clearly illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative components, blocks, modules, circuits, and steps have been described generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application, but such implementation decisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from the scope of the present disclosure. Also, the example mobile electronic device described herein may include components other than those shown, including well-known components.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, firmware, or any combination thereof, unless specifically described as being implemented in a specific manner. Any features described as modules or components may also be implemented together in an integrated logic device or separately as discrete but interoperable logic devices. If implemented in software, the techniques may be realized at least in part by a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed, perform one or more of the methods described herein. The non-transitory processor-readable data storage medium may form part of a computer program product, which may include packaging materials.

The non-transitory processor-readable storage medium may comprise random access memory (RAM) such as synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), read only memory (ROM), non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM), electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), FLASH memory, other known storage media, and the like. The techniques additionally, or alternatively, may be realized at least in part by a processor-readable communication medium that carries or communicates code in the form of instructions or data structures and that can be accessed, read, and/or executed by a computer or other processor.

The various illustrative logical blocks, modules, circuits and instructions described in connection with the embodiments disclosed herein may be executed by one or more processors, such as one or more motion processing units (MPUs), sensor processing units (SPUs), host processor(s) or core(s) thereof, digital signal processors (DSPs), general purpose microprocessors, application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), application specific instruction set processors (ASIPs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or other equivalent integrated or discrete logic circuitry. The term “processor,” as used herein may refer to any of the foregoing structures or any other structure suitable for implementation of the techniques described herein. In addition, in some aspects, the functionality described herein may be provided within dedicated software modules or hardware modules configured as described herein. Also, the techniques could be fully implemented in one or more circuits or logic elements. A general purpose processor may be a microprocessor, but in the alternative, the processor may be any conventional processor, controller, microcontroller, or state machine. A processor may also be implemented as a combination of computing devices, e.g., a combination of an SPU/MPU and a microprocessor, a plurality of microprocessors, one or more microprocessors in conjunction with an SPU core, MPU core, or any other such configuration.

Overview of Discussion

Discussion begins with a description of an example computer system environment, upon which embodiments of the present invention may be implemented. An example cloud-based computing environment, upon which embodiments of the present invention may be implemented, is then discussed. An example system having a bridge and an asynchronous channel based bus for asynchronous communication, in accordance with various embodiments, are then described.

Modern computing can be considered to be a collection of many different levels of abstraction above the physical computing-hardware level that includes physical computer systems, data-storage systems and devices, and communications networks.

The biggest challenge when attempting to build integration between separate products or distributed systems, is sourcing, delivering and sharing multiple streams of real-time data between multiple layers of middleware and the consumers and producers they are serving. Typically, companies such as VMware employ private API's or SDK's to pull or push data to and from products that talk to one another.

Moreover, with integrated communication, it is important to ensure that received message traffic is what was said to be sent. It is important to prevent attacks, malware, and the like.

Example embodiments described herein provide a method for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus. In one embodiment, the schema is standardized in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) schema. The runtime validation allows any UI, service, microservice, or platform to send and receive asynchronous messages between one another while ensuring that the received payload is what was said to be sent, e.g., to prevent attacks, malware, etc. a layer of defense.

In general, a JSON schema is a vocabulary that can be used to describe the existing data format in human and machine readable documentation. Further information regarding the JSON schema can be found at http://json-schema.org/ which is incorporated by reference herein. Although the JSON schema is discussed herein, the present technology is well suited to other validation schema-payload analysis. The use of JSON schema herein is provided for purposes of one example of the validation process.

Importantly, the embodiments of the present invention, as will be described below, provide a method for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus which differs significantly from the conventional processes used in API communication. In conventional approaches, API frameworks allow for dependency injection across API's. Normally developers create services that are injected into controllers. Services often have other services injected into them also. Whilst this pattern works for smaller applications, it quickly becomes unmanageable with large applications like the vSphere Webclient. Services and views quickly become tightly coupled and modularity becomes difficult to maintain when tens of services are injected in multiple areas. Such conventional approaches are deleteriously affected by API updates or changes, tedious, time-consuming, and often result in clunky client side code with API work arounds.

Instead, the present embodiments, as will be described and explained below in detail, provide a previously unknown procedure for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus. The asynchronous channel based bus provides two core services. The first is to allow the dynamic creation and subsequent destruction of channels within the bus. The second is to allow any actor to publish and/or subscribe to those channels and broadcast messages. The bridge is a completely decoupled module that depends only on the bus. Its function is to extend specific channels on the bus out to an application's message broker, platform or designated microservice. These extended channels are referred to herein as Galactic channels.

As will be described in detail, the various embodiments of the present invention do not merely implement conventional API communication processes on a computer. Instead, the various embodiments of the present invention, in part, provide a previously unknown procedure for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus. Hence, embodiments of the present invention provide a novel process for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus which is necessarily rooted in computer technology to overcome a problem specifically arising in the realm of API, service, microservice, or platform communication between separate products or distributed systems.

Example Computer System Environment

With reference now to FIG. 1, all or portions of some embodiments described herein are composed of computer-readable and computer-executable instructions that reside, for example, in computer-usable/computer-readable storage media of a computer system. That is, FIG. 1 illustrates one example of a type of computer (computer system 100) that can be used in accordance with or to implement various embodiments which are discussed herein. It is appreciated that computer system 100 of FIG. 1 is only an example and that embodiments as described herein can operate on or within a number of different computer systems including, but not limited to, general purpose networked computer systems, embedded computer systems, routers, switches, server devices, client devices, various intermediate devices/nodes, stand alone computer systems, media centers, handheld computer systems, multi-media devices, virtual machines, virtualization management servers, and the like. Computer system 100 of FIG. 1 is well adapted to having peripheral tangible computer-readable storage media 102 such as, for example, an electronic flash memory data storage device, a floppy disc, a compact disc, digital versatile disc, other disc based storage, universal serial bus “thumb” drive, removable memory card, and the like coupled thereto. The tangible computer-readable storage media is non-transitory in nature.

System 100 of FIG. 1 includes an address/data bus 104 for communicating information, and a processor 106A coupled with bus 104 for processing information and instructions. As depicted in FIG. 1, system 100 is also well suited to a multi-processor environment in which a plurality of processors 106A, 106B, and 106C are present. Conversely, system 100 is also well suited to having a single processor such as, for example, processor 106A. Processors 106A, 106B, and 106C may be any of various types of microprocessors. System 100 also includes data storage features such as a computer usable volatile memory 108, e.g., random access memory (RAM), coupled with bus 104 for storing information and instructions for processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. System 100 also includes computer usable non-volatile memory 110, e.g., read only memory (ROM), coupled with bus 104 for storing static information and instructions for processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. Also present in system 100 is a data storage unit 112 (e.g., a magnetic or optical disc and disc drive) coupled with bus 104 for storing information and instructions. System 100 also includes an alphanumeric input device 114 including alphanumeric and function keys coupled with bus 104 for communicating information and command selections to processor 106A or processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. System 100 also includes an cursor control device 116 coupled with bus 104 for communicating user input information and command selections to processor 106A or processors 106A, 106B, and 106C. In one embodiment, system 100 also includes a display device 118 coupled with bus 104 for displaying information.

Referring still to FIG. 1, display device 118 of FIG. 1 may be a liquid crystal device (LCD), light emitting diode display (LED) device, cathode ray tube (CRT), plasma display device, a touch screen device, or other display device suitable for creating graphic images and alphanumeric characters recognizable to a user. Cursor control device 116 allows the computer user to dynamically signal the movement of a visible symbol (cursor) on a display screen of display device 118 and indicate user selections of selectable items displayed on display device 118. Many implementations of cursor control device 116 are known in the art including a trackball, mouse, touch pad, touch screen, joystick or special keys on alphanumeric input device 114 capable of signaling movement of a given direction or manner of displacement. Alternatively, it will be appreciated that a cursor can be directed and/or activated via input from alphanumeric input device 114 using special keys and key sequence commands. System 100 is also well suited to having a cursor directed by other means such as, for example, voice commands. In various embodiments, alphanumeric input device 114, cursor control device 116, and display device 118, or any combination thereof (e.g., user interface selection devices), may collectively operate to provide a UI 130 under the direction of a processor (e.g., processor 106A or processors 106A, 106B, and 106C). UI 130 allows user to interact with system 100 through graphical representations presented on display device 118 by interacting with alphanumeric input device 114 and/or cursor control device 116.

System 100 also includes an I/O device 120 for coupling system 100 with external entities. For example, in one embodiment, I/O device 120 is a modem for enabling wired or wireless communications between system 100 and an external network such as, but not limited to, the Internet.

Referring still to FIG. 1, various other components are depicted for system 100. Specifically, when present, an operating system 122, applications 124, modules 126, and data 128 are shown as typically residing in one or some combination of computer usable volatile memory 108 (e.g., RAM), computer usable non-volatile memory 110 (e.g., ROM), and data storage unit 112. In some embodiments, all or portions of various embodiments described herein are stored, for example, as an application 124 and/or module 126 in memory locations within RAM 108, computer-readable storage media within data storage unit 112, peripheral computer-readable storage media 102, and/or other tangible computer-readable storage media.

Example Cloud-Based Computing Environment

FIG. 2 illustrates an example cloud-based computing environment 200 upon which embodiments described herein may be implemented. In the cloud-computing paradigm, computing cycles and data-storage facilities are provided to organizations and individuals by cloud-computing providers. In addition, larger organizations may elect to establish private cloud-computing facilities in addition to, or instead of subscribing to computing services provided by public cloud-computing service providers. In FIG. 2, a system administrator for an organization, using a computer system 202, accesses the organization's local virtualization infrastructure 204 (e.g., a private cloud) through a local network 206 and also accesses, through the Internet 210, a remote virtualization infrastructure 212 (e.g., a public cloud). In various embodiments, access to local virtualization infrastructure 204 is through a private cloud services interface and/or access to remote virtualization infrastructure 212 is through a public cloud services interface.

It should be appreciated that local virtualization infrastructure 204 can be any type of virtualization infrastructure (e.g., VMware vSphere™), that remote virtualization infrastructure 212 can be any type of virtualization infrastructure (e.g., VMware vCloud Air) and that virtualization infrastructure management system 208 can be any type of system for managing and creating components of a virtualization infrastructure (e.g., VMware vSphere™ VCenter™ or vCloud Air Web Portal).

For example, the administrator can, in either the case of local virtualization infrastructure 204 or remote virtualization infrastructure 212, using virtualization infrastructure management system 208, configure virtual computer systems and even entire virtual data centers and launch execution of application programs on the virtual computer systems and virtual data centers in order to carry out any of many different types of computational tasks. As one example, a small organization may configure and run a virtual data center within a public cloud that executes web servers to provide an e-commerce interface through the public cloud to remote customers of the organization, such as a user viewing the organization's e-commerce web pages on a remote computer system 216.

Cloud-computing facilities may provide computational bandwidth and data-storage services much as utility companies provide electrical power and water to consumers. Cloud computing provides enormous advantages to small organizations without the resources to purchase, manage, and maintain in-house data centers. Such organizations can dynamically add and delete virtual computer systems from their virtual data centers within public clouds in order to track computational-bandwidth and data-storage needs, rather than purchasing sufficient computer systems within a physical data center to handle peak computational-bandwidth and data-storage demands. Moreover, small organizations can completely avoid the overhead of maintaining and managing physical computer systems, including hiring and periodically retraining information-technology specialists and continuously paying for operating-system and database-management-system upgrades. Furthermore, cloud-computing interfaces allow for easy and straightforward configuration of virtual computing facilities, flexibility in the types of applications and operating systems that can be configured, and other functionalities that are useful even for owners and administrators of private cloud-computing facilities used by a single organization.

Bus

FIG. 3 shows a bus 410 with a simple, yet elegant architecture for sharing information between publishers and subscribers across a local or distributed system. The asynchronous nature of bus 410 is ideal for UI's, as well as microservices.

In one embodiment, bus 410 creates a peer to peer (P2P) architecture between all components, thereby removing the need to keep adding hops to a call stack and increasing blocked calls. Bus 410 allows each message to be performed in small asynchronous units of work, that clears the call stack and lets another actor process or send a message, or the UI to re-render a component. Bus 410 essentially allows every message to be processed as a cycle of the event loop (a core part of a browser) or the main application thread instead of being a blocked call in a chain.

The channel based bus 410 that provides two core services. The first is to allow the dynamic creation and subsequent destruction of channel(s) 440 within bus 410. The second is to allow any actor (e.g., consumer(s) 420 and/or producer(s) 430) to publish and/or subscribe to those channel(s) 440 and broadcast messages. Operation is analogous with a chat system like Slack or IRC. A channel 440 can be requested by any actor to which bus 410 is visible, if the channel 440 doesn't exist, it is created. In one embodiment, when there are no more subscribers to a channel 440, the channel 440 is destroyed. Bus 410 allows actors which mainly consist of services and controllers, to send and receive messages 455 and 460 between each other. These messages 455 and 460 can be any type of data such as objects, strings, arrays, streams, collections, or maps.

As stated herein, actors can be considered consumer(s) 420, producer(s) 430, or both. Consumer(s) 420 can issue requests 416 and listen for responses 419, producer(s) 430 can listen for requests 417 and issue responses 418. As long as an actor can see bus 410, they are able to communicate with any other actor within the local or remote system.

In one embodiment, a consumer(s) 420 (or something that needs data) can make a request for data by sending an outbound request message 455 to the topic channel 440 on bus 410. Request message 455 will be broadcast to any subscribed actors listening to request messages on that same channel 440. In this example, # metrics is used as the topic channel(s) 440.

A producer(s) 430 provides data and listens for outbound requests on its topic channel 440. Once the producer(s) 430 receives the request message 455, it can perform whatever operations it requires. When the producer(s) 430 is ready, it sends an inbound response message 460 to the topic channel 440 on bus 410. The consumer(s) 420 is subscribed to # metrics channel 440 also, but is only listening to inbound response messages 460. The consumer(s) 420 will pick up the broadcast message and be able to continue on.

In one embodiment, all of bus 410 activity is handled in a non-blocking and asynchronous manner. In one embodiment, bus 410 makes use of a ReactiveX framework as the foundation. This facilitates the asynchronous/stream based communication. In so doing, bus 410 enables true decoupling of components and services inside applications. Bus 410 becomes the only dependency and is also context neutral. In other words, bus 410 is unaware of the application(s) it's embedded in.

For example, consumer(s) 420 should be able to hop into a channel 440, send a request on the channel. Meanwhile, producer(s) 430 that can meet the request is also listening on the channel. The producer(s) 430 receives the request 455 and then provides the request response 460 on the channel. Consumer 420 will receive the request response 460 on the channel.

Thus, in one embodiment, any component on the bus 410 can talk to each other. They can talk on private channels or on public channels.

For example, a REST service (e.g., producer 430) listens to messages on a REST channel designed for components (e.g., consumer 420) that want to send out a REST response to an API. A component will say on a REST channel, I want to make a call, go get me some VMs or go get me some users. The component (e.g., consumer 420) that sends the request will then go back to idle. The REST service (e.g., producer 430) will take the message and make the XHR/HTTP call needed to go get the data; once the data is returned to the REST service, the REST service will take the returned data and put the data on the message bus on the REST channel. The component that made the call will note the returned data on the REST channel.

In so doing, the component that made the call does not need to know about the rest service, HTTP or the API. Doesn't need to know where the data comes from, how it is processed, or who gets it. It merely needs to listen for responses on the channel. In other words, services, controllers and views have all been decoupled. Instead of communicating with each other through dependency injection or the like, they communicate through message channels on the bus 410. The messaging is all asynchronous so there is no sitting and waiting, only when something else comes down the channel will the application wake up and start handling it.

In one embodiment, the component can send the request on a first channel (e.g., a public channel) and further request that the response be sent on a second separate channel (e.g., a private channel).

In one embodiment, there is no global list of channels, no whitelist of channels or the like received by the components coupled with bus 410. It is a multicast communication channel that can be created on demand by a consumer 420 or producer 430. If no one is listening on the channel then nothing will be sent and messages are dropped from the bus.

In another embodiment, a request to bus 410 can be made by a consumer 420 and/or producer 430 to provide the different channels available on the bus. In another embodiment, there may be a registration, a list of pre-defined channels, etc.

Bridge

FIG. 4 further illustrates the architecture 400 for a bridge 510 transparently extending bus 410 between two applications (e.g., application A and application B). In one embodiment, bridge 510 is a completely decoupled module that depends only on bus 410. The function of bridge 510 is to extend specific channel(s) 440 on bus 410 out to an application's message broker 555 (broker 555 may be a broker, platform, designated microservice or the like). In general, these extended channel(s) 440 are referred to herein as Galactic channels.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 operates by making use of a monitor API 520 that bus 410 provides. Monitor API 520 broadcasts channel 440 events relating to creation, subscription, un-subscription and destruction. Events relating to Galactic channels are what bridge 510 really cares about. In one embodiment, bridge 510 ignores all non-Galactic events. In one embodiment, to identify # local vs Galactic or extended channel(s) 440, the following hash convention plus snakecase is used: # local-channel vs Galactic-channel (no hash). However, it should be appreciated that there are no specific limitations on the naming of local vs Galactic channels, the previous convention is merely one of a number of different possible ways to delineate the difference between the local and Galactic channel.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 transparently extending a bus to and from a message broker 555. One embodiment illustrates how bridge 510 transparently subscribes to Galactic channel 640 g and then proxies request message(s) 455 and response message(s) 460 to and from the message broker 555. It achieves this by listening for Galactic channel 640 g traffic, converting request message 455 and response message 460 to and from STOMP client 610 and then sending and receiving messages 455 and 460 over a Socket 620. It further ignores local channel 640 l traffic.

In one embodiment, socket 620 is a WebSocket. In general, when a live feed/stream is needed, a browser (or platform) can use sockets (e.g., WebSockets or regular sockets) to create a bidirectional string (it is normally unidirectional). Live feed via the socket 620 is used to send live feed updates (metric, notification, alert, network change, etc.) to a service (e.g., producer and/or consumer) and for the service to be able to capture the live feed updates.

When bridge 510 receives a Galactic channel 640 g event, it will act as a global broker for that channel and extend the channel out to message broker 555, another service that supports STOMP, or the like. In one embodiment, bus 410 has no knowledge that bridge 510 is operating, neither do the peers (e.g., producer(s) 430 and consumer(s) 420) sending requests and responses. Bridge 510 handles all of the proxying of messages transparently. In other words, bridge 510 acts as the glue between bus 410 and multiple STOMP enabled message broker(s) 555, connected over WebSocket 620.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 has benefits that hide and abstract a lot of complexity. For example, bridge 510 transparently handles all of the WebSocket 620 and session management across multiple message broker(s) 555. In one embodiment, bridge 510 reads raw STOMP frames being sent from message broker 555 and then parses and distributes the messages to the Galactic channel(s) 640 g that match the destination of the message. In order to maintain the Galactic channel organization, bridge 510 subscribes to a topic or queue that matches the name of the Galactic channel 640 g on bus 410. Once subscribed, bridge 510 will relay any messages 455 and 460 sent to or from any Galactic channel 640 g and the mapped topics/queues.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 handles message broker 555 communications via an interoperable wire format such as STOMP 1.2. That is, messages 455 and 460 sent on Galactic channel(s) 640 g are marshalled and unmarshalled into STOMP commands that are both transmitted and received by message broker 555. In one embodiment, bus 410 is not aware of STOMP commands; instead, bridge 510 takes care of it all.

For example, when data is desired (e.g., metrics, Virtual machines, user data, etc.), the component can subscribe to all the channels locally, bridge 510 will extend the channels to their own topics on the message broker 555, and, in one embodiment, all through a single socket 620. That is, in one embodiment, every subscribed channel by the component is passed through the single socket 620.

The bridge will receive the response messages from the message broker and then provide the response messages to the local channel related to the initial request. Thus, bridge 510 allows multiple systems to talk to each other without knowing they are talking to remote systems. They think they are talking to a local message bus but they are actually extended to any number of systems.

For example, they are sending things on local channels 640 l or Galactic channels 640 g, if it is sent on a Galactic channel 640 g, the monitor API 520 realizes it is a message 455 on a Galactic channel 640 g, takes the message 455 to bridge 510 through the STOMP client 610 and over the WebSocket 620 and transports it to the broker 555 and anyone listening. A listening component coupled with the broker/platform 555 will receive the message 455 and send a response 460 back to the WebSocket 620, through the STOMP client 610 up to the bridge 510 and the bridge 510 will put the response 460 on the proper channel 640 g.

In one embodiment, bus 410 and bridge 510 don't require any additional technologies other than the language they are written in and the ReactiveX framework to operate. An existing application message broker 555 (like Spring) could instantly be adapted to communicate over STOMP. In one embodiment, bus 410 and bridge 510 inside the Bifröst is written in TypeScript and Java and depends on reactive extensions for JavaScript (RxJS) and Java (RxJava). In general, the STOMP implementation does not require any third party libraries as it is custom built using the STOMP 1.2 specification.

Since service call chaining no longer exists, all operations can happen asynchronously. This not only provides a huge performance improvement over blocking chained calls, but it also allows developers to build new architectures that focus on a stream and event based/reactive world. Further, it facilitates designers to construct new experiences based on stream driven data, particularly if the data is live streaming via the Bridge.

In one embodiment, services can make requests and handle responses with just a few lines of code. For example, request message(s) 455 and response message(s) 460 can be handled with class methods, or closures. E.g.

const bus = new MessagebusService( ); /* will log ‘response: echo [hello!]’ */ bus.respondOnce(“#local-channel”).generate( (request: string) => { return “echo [“ + request + ”]”; } ); bus.requestOnce(“#local-channel”, “hello!”).handle( (response: string) => { console.log(“response: ” + echo); } );

The Bridge allows components using the Bus to treat distributed (Galactic) channels as regular channel(s) 440; the process of how those messages are broadcast to remote consumers is completely abstracted away from the developer. That is, there is no requirement to learn the complexities of WebSocket 620 communications, STOMP, or handling multiple streams with data arriving asynchronously.

Individual components inside a UI or service can communicate directly with other services or UI components locally or remotely via bridge 510. No other component needs to know about the conversations happening between other UI components, message broker(s) 555 and headless microservices. This allows a selection menu in a UI to request data over a Galactic channel 640 g from a microservice running somewhere. Only the dropdown component and the microservice would know about the conversation and the rest of the application could remain idle.

In one embodiment, bridge 510 has a socket watchdog that will reconnect if there is an error or a disconnect between bridge 510 and message broker 555.

The Bifröst architecture allows a browser based UI to talk directly to a message broker 555 over WebSocket 620. It also allows any other non-browser based application or microservice to communicate with a message broker 555 using standard sockets. In both cases, the same simple protocol to send and receive messages is used.

In other words, using bridge 510, the service will send the information on the channel, the bridge will be able to translate the information (via the STOMP) before it is put on the broker/platform and translate the response before it is put back on the channel to the service. In so doing, each different service can universally communicate. Thereby providing a real-time distributed architecture where producers and consumers can talk to each other asynchronously by any number of remote systems and local systems. Thus, using Bifröst, the concept of local and remote no longer matters; resulting in scalability, distribution, extension, speed, performance, etc.

That is, bridge 510 allows the application to connect to multiple message broker(s) 555 at the same time and create and consume multiple streams of data that can be bound together to create new streams. Message broker(s) 555 can be distributed/relayed and expand Galactic channels 640 g out across clouds and DMZ's. Moreover, messages 455 and 460 can be relayed between message broker(s) 555 to connect services and UI's across different networks, all transparently.

In general, broker 555 can be a single broker or a pool of brokers. Messages are stateless. Further, in one embodiment, the message(s) are queued by the broker so that the component will not miss a message if it is down/away/occupied, etc.

Decoupled System Communication

FIG. 5 illustrates the architecture 500 of a plurality of different applications all communicating via the distributed buses. In one embodiment, four different applications (A-D) are communicating via the distributed buses 410 a-410 d, two applications (A and D) are producing content, another two (B and C) are consuming. In one embodiment, application D is connected to the distributed bus 410 via a relay 677.

The buses 410 a-410 d in combination with the bridges 510 a-510 d, provide the mechanisms to handle multiple streams of data inside an application (via channel(s) 640-642 on the different buses) and also provides the ability to distribute and manage these streams across applications. For example, bus 410 a has three Galactic channels 640-642; bridge 510 a (and the components as shown in detail in FIG. 4) provides the content to bridges 510 b-510 d via broker 555 a and broker 555 b via relay 677. As shown in FIG. 5, channel 640 has consumer 420A1 in Application A, consumer 420D in Application D, and producer 430B in Application B able to provide and receive messages thereon via the monitoring provided by bridge 510 a, bridge 510 b and bridge 510 c respectively.

Channel 641 has consumer 420A2 in Application A and producer 430 c 1 in Application C able to provide and receive messages thereon via the monitoring provided by bridge 510 a and bridge 510 c respectively.

Channel 642 has consumer 420A3 in Application A and producer 430 c 2 in Application C able to provide and receive messages thereon via the monitoring provided by bridge 510 a and bridge 510 c respectively.

Thus, architects can now design systems without the concern of distributed control planes or worrying about integrations and API's. User experience designers can imagine UI's and workflows composed from multiple streams of data from different applications and microservices. Dashboards can now source information from as many services as can be supported. The Bifröst allows designers and developers to create single UI's for applications that consume data across multiple products or even across entire networks.

With a distributed Galactic bus, UI components only need to worry about two things, which channel(s) 640-642 to ask for data on and how to render that data to the user. The data could be supplied by another application connected to the same broker on the same Galactic channel. Thus, bus 410 and bridge 510 that make up the Bifröst allows for UI's to be modularly constructed decoupled, asynchronous and lazily loaded.

Example Methods of Operation

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram 600 of an example method for ensuring payload validity for communications on an asynchronous channel based bus, according to various embodiments. Procedures of the method will be described with reference to elements and/or components of FIGS. 3-5. It is appreciated that in some embodiments, the procedures may be performed in a different order than described, that some of the described procedures may not be performed, and/or that one or more additional procedures to those described may be performed. Flow diagram 600 includes some procedures that, in various embodiments, are carried out by one or more processors under the control of computer-readable and computer-executable instructions that are stored on non-transitory computer-readable storage media. It is further appreciated that one or more procedures described in flow diagram 600 may be implemented in hardware, or a combination of hardware with firmware and/or software.

With reference to 710 of flow diagram 600 and to FIGS. 3-5, one embodiment provides, from a consumer 420 and to a channel of an asynchronous channel based bus 410, a request message 455 comprising a request for data.

In one embodiment, consumer 420 is a user interface (UI) or a service.

Referring now to 715 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment receives, at a producer 430, the request message 455.

With reference to 720 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment generates, at producer 430, a response message 460 to the request message 455, response message 460 including a schema and a payload.

Thus, when a request is received, whoever responds to the request would include a schema in response message 460. The schema of response message 460 will define all of the properties in the message, such as all the data types (E.g., numbers, strings, primitives, objects, arrays, Booleans, null, etc.) needed. Thus, response message 460 will include both the schema and the payload.

For example, the remote system providing response message 460 would provide a schema that the response payload has a, b, and c in it.

In one embodiment, the schema is standardized in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) schema. In general, a JSON schema is a vocabulary that can be used to describe the existing data format in human and machine readable documentation. Further information regarding the JSON schema can be found at http://json-schema.org/ which is incorporated by reference herein. Although the JSON schema is discussed herein, the present technology is well suited to other validation schema-payload analysis. The use of JSON schema herein is provided for purposes of one example of the validation process.

In one embodiment, Swagger (http://swagger.io) definitions are used to generate TypeScript or Java classes and schemas for response message 460. Swagger is an integrated API design and documentation platform. Although Swagger is discussed herein, it is one of a plurality of possible API design and documentation platforms that may be used in accordance with the claimed features.

Referring now to 725 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment provides, from producer 430 and to the channel 440 of the asynchronous channel based bus 410, response message 460.

With reference to 730 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment receives, at consumer 420, response message 460.

Referring now to 735 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment performs, at consumer 420, a runtime validation of the schema of response message 460. In one embodiment, the runtime validation compares one or more of the plurality of properties defined by the schema with one or more of the plurality of properties of response message 460. The response message 460 passes the runtime validation when the plurality of properties defined by the schema is consistent with the plurality of properties of the payload of response message 460.

In one embodiment, consumer 420 that makes the request will perform a run time validation of the schema. In general, the runtime validation is a way of validating that what is received is the same as what was said to be sent. In other words, the validation ensures that response message 460 was not modified after being broadcast from producer 430 and prior to being received by consumer 420. E.g., to prevent attacks, malware, etc. It is a layer of defense.

For example, the remote system providing response message 460 would provide a schema that the response payload has a, b, and c in it. Consumer 420 compares the schema to the payload. If the actual message payload consists of a, b, and c then the payload is validated and consumer 420 utilizes the payload as a valid response. The payload and schema can be used together to create a hash (MD5, SHA etc.). This hash can also be used to validate the payload has not been tampered with. A consumer can validate this hash once it receives the response from a producer.

With reference to 740 of flow diagram 600, one embodiment allows, by consumer 420, the payload of response message 460 to be utilized when response message 460 passes the runtime validation.

In contrast, consumer 420 prevents the payload of response message 460 from being utilized when response message 460 fails the runtime validation. In one embodiment, in addition to preventing the payload from being used, consumer 420 informs a user via the UI 130 that there is a problem with response message 460.

For example, if the response message 460 payload is d, e, and f, when consumer 420 compares the schema (e.g., a, b, and c) to the actual payload (e.g., d, e, and f) response message 460 will be invalidated. When the response message payload is invalidated it will be prevented from being used by the requesting component, e.g., consumer 420. In one embodiment, in addition to preventing the response message payload from being used by the requesting component, the runtime validation will alert the requesting component that there was something wrong with the response message payload.

In one embodiment, after response message 460 is invalidated, consumer 420 will make a re-request for the data. In another embodiment, after response message 460 is invalidated, consumer 420 will show the user (e.g., via the UI 130) that something is wrong with the response instead of just putting the received message into the UI or the service.

Request Message Including a Schema

In one embodiment, when consumer 420 makes a request it will include a schema of what response message 460 should look like (e.g., a response in format 1, 1.4, 2.1, etc.). In so doing, there may be a number of different producers that are listening for the request on the same channel 440. Each of the different producers will only respond to a specific schema (or version type). So there can be multiple versions of the API running at the same time. In one embodiment, the schema for the format of the response message is based on a version of the consumer providing the request message. In another embodiment, the schema for the format of the response message is based on a version of the producer generating the response message.

Thus, there can be any number of producers (different versions) and any number of consumers (different versions) that only respond to specific versions of their messages. As such, the API versioning can be done dynamically. There is no need to create new API's, name spacing APIs, or specific version/specific dates API. Instead, all the versions can be running at the same time and producers and consumers will only respond and send the version that they are expecting. So multiple systems can work with very different versions of the API's, e.g., really early consumers still able to operate, because messages are sent in version 1.1 and a version 1.1 producer is still listening on the remote system.

In one embodiment, producer 430 determines whether or not the format schema requested by the consumer 420 match the schema of the producer's response message. When the format schema does not match the schema of the producer's response message, producer 430 would ignore the request message.

In one embodiment, the request message is received, at an n^(th) producer. That is, the request message is received by a plurality of producers, one or more of which have a different response schema. When the appropriate consumer schema and producer schema match is identified by the producer, e.g., the n^(th) producer; the n^(th) producer will generate the appropriate response message 460 and provide, to the channel 640 of the asynchronous channel based bus 410, the n^(th) producer response message 460.

In one embodiment, the different versions may be on different channels. That is, instead of passing messages of different schemas on the same channel, each version may use a different channel. Using FIG. 5 to support the discussion, a version 1.1 may use channel 640, while a version 2.1 would use the different channel 641. In so doing, when the next version is put into operation, channel 641 on bus 410 is used to support communications between devices that are using the 2.1 format.

Moreover, in one embodiment, if versions of the producers are backward compatible, a 2.1 producer (e.g., 430 c 1) would listen to both channel 640 and 641. When producer 430 c 1 receives a request message on the 1.1 version channel 640, the producer will provide a response message with a payload for the 1.1 version. Similarly, when producer 430 c 1 receives a request message on the 2.1 version channel 641, the producer will provide a response message with a payload for the 2.1 version. In one embodiment, the producer 430 c 1 would provide the appropriate schema with the appropriate response on the appropriate channel.

Similarly, if versions of the consumers are backward compatible, a 2.1 consumer (e.g., 420A1) would provide the request on, and listen to, both channel 640 and 641. When consumer 420A1 receives a response message on the 1.1 version channel 640, the consumer will validate the schema of the response message as being related to a payload for the 1.1 version. Similarly, when consumer 420A1 receives a response message on the 2.1 version channel 641, the consumer will validate the schema of the response message as being related to a payload for the 2.1 version.

CONCLUSION

The approach disclosed herein provides verification and legacy compatibility in a graceful manner that includes interoperability. It also facilitates more rapid development of complex reactive style experiences without the investment required to understand the lower level intricacies.

The examples set forth herein were presented in order to best explain, to describe particular applications, and to thereby enable those skilled in the art to make and use embodiments of the described examples. However, those skilled in the art will recognize that the foregoing description and examples have been presented for the purposes of illustration and example only. The description as set forth is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.

Reference throughout this document to “one embodiment,” “certain embodiments,” “an embodiment,” “various embodiments,” “some embodiments,” or similar term means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Thus, the appearances of such phrases in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment. Furthermore, the particular features, structures, or characteristics of any embodiment may be combined in any suitable manner with one or more other features, structures, or characteristics of one or more other embodiments without limitation. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: providing a request message to a channel of an asynchronous channel based bus (“bus”) from a consumer, the request message including a request for data and a format schema for a format of a response message to the request message; receiving the request message at a producer; determining, by the producer, whether the format schema matches a first schema for response messages; generating the response message at the producer based on determining that the format schema matches the first schema, the response message including the first schema and a payload; providing the response message to the channel from the producer; receiving the response message at the consumer; performing a runtime validation of the first schema of the response message at the consumer; and allowing, by the consumer, the response message to be utilized based on the response message passing the runtime validation.
 2. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the consumer is a user interface (UI) or a service.
 3. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising preventing, by the consumer, the payload from being utilized based on the response message failing the runtime validation.
 4. The method as recited by claim 3, further comprising informing a user via a user interface (UI) that there is a problem with the response message.
 5. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the schema defines a plurality of defined properties of the response message, the plurality of defined properties comprising each data type in the response message.
 6. The method as recited by claim 5, wherein each data is selected from the group consisting of, one or more of, a number, a string, an object, an array, a Boolean, and a primitive.
 7. The method as recited by claim 5, wherein the runtime validation comprises: comparing the plurality of defined properties with a plurality of received properties of the response message; and passing the runtime validation when the plurality of defined properties is consistent with the plurality of received properties.
 8. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the format schema is based on a version of a format schema associated with the consumer.
 9. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the format is based on a version of a format schema associated with the producer.
 10. The method as recited by claim 1, wherein the determining includes determining, by the producer, that the format schema does not match the first schema and ignoring, at the producer, the request message.
 11. The method as recited by claim 10, further comprising: receiving the request message at an n^(th) producer; determining, by the n^(th) producer, that the format schema matches an n^(th) schema associated with the n^(th) producer; generating the response message at the n^(th) producer, based on determining that the format schema matches the n^(th) schema; and providing response message to the channel of the bus from the n^(th) producer.
 12. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embedded therein that when executed causes a computing system to perform a method comprising: providing a request message to a channel of an asynchronous channel based bus (“bus”) from a consumer, the request message including a request for data and a format schema for a format of a response message to the request message; receiving the request message at a produce, determining, by the producer, that the format schema does not match a first schema for response messages and ignoring, at the producer, the request message; receiving the request message at an n^(th) producer; determining, by the n^(th) producer, that the format schema matches an n^(th) schema associated with the n^(th) producer; the response message at the n^(th) producer based on determining that the format schema matches the n^(th) schema, the response message including the n^(th) schema and a payload; providing the response message to the channel from the n^(th) producer; and receiving the response message at the consumer.
 13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited by claim 12, further comprising: performing a runtime validation of the n^(th) schema of the response message that includes: comparing a plurality of defined properties defined by the n^(th) schema with a plurality of received properties of the response message; and passing the runtime validation when the plurality of defined properties is consistent with the plurality of received properties; and authorizing, by the consumer, the response message to be utilized based on the response message passing the runtime validation.
 14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited by claim 13, wherein the plurality of defined properties includes each data type in the response message, each data type in the response message being selected from the group consisting of one or more of: a number, a string, an object, an array, a Boolean and a primitive.
 15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium as recited by claim 13, further comprising: preventing, by the consumer, the response message from being utilized based on the response message failing the runtime validation; and informing a user via a user interface (UI) that there is a problem with the response message.
 16. A method comprising: providing a request message to a channel of an asynchronous channel based bus (“bus”) from a consumer, the request message including a request for data and a format schema for a format of a response message to the request message; receiving the request message at a producer; determining, by the producer, whether the format schema matches a first schema for response messages; generating the response message at the producer based on determining that the format schema matches the first schema, the response message including the first schema and a payload; providing the response message to the channel from the producer; receiving the response message at the consumer; performing a runtime validation of the first schema at the consumer by: comparing a plurality of defined properties defined by the first schema with a plurality of received properties of the response message; and passing the runtime validation based on the plurality of defined being consistent with the plurality of received properties; and permitting, by the consumer, the response message to be utilized based on the response message passing the runtime validation.
 17. The method as recited by claim 16, wherein the determining includes determining, by the producer, that the format schema does not match the first schema and ignoring, at the producer, the request message; and wherein the method further comprises: receiving the request message at an n^(th) producer; determining, by the n^(th) producer, that the format schema matches an n^(th) schema associated with the n^(th) producer; generating the response message at the n^(th) producer based on determining that the format schema matches the n^(th) schema; and providing the response message to the channel of the bus from the n^(th) producer. 